Michael V. Hayden Edward Snowden’s leaks have fixated the media and the public on privacy and espionage, but the larger and more complex debate on protecting American security in the 21st century has been wanting. At that point it became clear to me that it mattered less whether I thought America was exceptional. What mattered was that many people around the world thought that we were, and expected us to act accordingly. In many ways this is less something we have earned or even want, and more the product of historical circumstance. But a burden has clearly been ours, and […]

Amir Hamza Bangash Press-state relations in Pakistan have never been ideal. It has always been shadowed with the closure of newspapers, magazines, harassment of journalists coupled with threats, kidnapping, murders; and other pressure tactics such as censorship and release of news print quota and even ban of official advertisement. On the other hand, the press in Pakistan, for most of the times, has not remained fair in doing justice with its noble profession by looking at the issue from the neutral or third person perspective. It has been mostly influenced by financial motives, past enmities, nepotism, personal grudges and even […]

In a telephone call Monday between Russia’s Defense Minister General Sergei Shoigu and the U.S. Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel, Shoigu described the activity of U.S. and NATO troops near Russia’s border as “unprecedented.” According to the official Russian version of the call, his American counterpart assured him the alliance did not have “provocative or expansionist” intentions — and that Russia should know this. But it hardly seems to matter how often NATO makes these assurances. The Kremlin will never trust them. Fear of the Western military alliance’s steady march east is deep-rooted. It strikes at the very heart of […]

From the elaborate details of a Japanese state visit to the more mundane question of how much face-time to give each of his Asian hosts, President Barack Obama’s aides spent months meticulously scripting his four-country tour of the region. But as the week-long trip wrapped up on Tuesday it was clear that, while Obama scored points with skeptical allies simply by showing up, not everything followed the White House plan. The U.S. president’s clear aim was to demonstrate that his long-promised strategic shift towards Asia and the Pacific, widely seen as aimed at countering China’s rising influence, was real. Early reviews from […]

After Edward Snowden caught the US government with its pants down, you would think the keepers of this country’s secrets might stand up for a little more transparency, not bend over backwards trying to control the message. Instead, this week we found out the Most Transparent Administration in American History™ has implemented a new anti-press policy that would make Richard Nixon blush. National intelligence director James Clapper, the mancaught lying to Congress from an “unauthorized” leak by Snowden, issued a directive to the employees of all 17 intelligence agencies barring all employees from any “unauthorized” contact with the press. The underappreciated Steven Aftergood, […]

Thursday’s agreement to calm the crisis in eastern Ukraine already appears tenuous, as Washington and Moscow promptly began bickering over the deal’s meaning. “We’re looking at all of this skeptically,” a senior administration official tells TIME The ink wasn’t yet dry on Thursday’s diplomatic deal to calm the crisis in eastern Ukraine before the Obama administration began casting doubt on it. Secretary of State John Kerry, who helped broker the deal in Geneva with Russia, Ukraine, and the European Union, warned that it was only “words on paper.” President Obama told reporters he didn’t think “we can count on” the deal sticking. A day […]

Solitary confinement’s psychological effects are obvious enough. But you have to hear it from the prisoners to be truly horrified. Sarah Shourd still has nightmares about the 13 months she spent in solitary confinement in Iran. “It reduces you to an animal-like state,” she tells me. Shourd recalled the hours she spent crouched down at the food slot of her cell door, listening for any sign of life. Or pounding on the walls until her knuckles bled. Or covering her ears to drown out the screams – the screams she could no longer distinguish as her own – until she […]

Kristina Wong and Jeremy Herb If there is a new cold war with Russia, many observers believe the U.S. is losing it. First under President George W. Bush and now under President Obama, the U.S. and Vladimir Putin’s Russia have engaged in a series of foreign policy battles — and Putin has repeatedly got his way. The Russian president’s objective is clear. He wants to reassert Russia’s influence in Eastern Europe while preventing NATO’s further expansion toward Russia, said Erik Brattberg, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.Diplomatic fights over Syria in 2013 and Russian’s military clash with Georgia in […]

“Big ‘stupido’…running up to get an Oscar dying with excitement only to crawl back dying with shame (because a different director wins). Those crummy Academy voters; to hell with their lousy awards. If ever they did vote me one, I would never, never, NEVER show up to accept it.” Like a billion other people around the world on Sunday we’ll gather around a TV set to watch the Oscars otherwise known as the Awards Ceremony of the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It’s our town’s Superbowl. Rah rah. The fun is hardly ever in the deeply dumb show but us fans […]

Alan Hart I have long thought that Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the PLO’s Executive Committee and the Palestine Legislative Council, is the most articulate spokesperson in Israeli occupied territory for her cause. Her latest comment is a bleak assessment of the prospects for getting a real peace process going. She was responding to a statement by an Obama administration official that both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas will be able to “express reservations about individual provisions” in the framework document Secretary of State Kerry is preparing. Here’s what Ashrawi said: “A framework that allowed each […]